Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Recently The Wall Street Journal ran an article about Maksym Kryvtsov, a Ukrainian poet turned soldier. Kryvtsov, who wrote most of his poems about the horrors of the war, perished in battle, on January 7th. He was 33. One of his most well-known poems talked of his “severed arms” that would “sprout as violets in the spring.” This same poem ends with these lines:
My bones
Will sink into the earth
Will become a carcass
My busted rifle
Will rust
Poor thing
My spare clothes and equipment
Will be given to new recruits
Well I’d rather it were spring already
To finally
Bloom
As a violet.
Poetry touches our hearts and our souls in a way that more direct writing cannot seem to do. I suppose that the way to our collective hearts is a windy path, filled with mystery, nuance, feeling, and to surrendering to its ever changing direction. I wrote the poem below, just this morning, before reading again, the poem above by Maksym Kryvtsov, which my husband had kindly laid aside for me a week or so ago. I am humbled by the difference in poetry by a poet who is surrounded by the direness of war, versus a writer who leads an agreeable life, in a country not at war.
On stormy, cold, windy days,
As the rain hammers its surroundings,
Home feels so cozy, comforting, serene.
Curling up in our own corner of the world,
Fills us with the feeling of being nurtured,
By the nesting that we busied ourselves with,
in more agreeable, enticing, seductive weather.
On still, bright, inviting, playful days,
We jauntily leave home for adventures,
Full of confidence, curiosity and calm.
And we often bring home possessions,
Which remind us of our truest selves.
So that when the storms arise again,
We are surrounded by the contentment,
Of our inner selves, displayed in physical form.
Our home, which is an extension of the life of us,
Is our familiar and steadfast, shelter from the storm.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
“Learning about it reminded me of my regular talking point — a sad irony of our world — that the people who fight the most are always the most similar. The Israelis and Palestinians, the Ukrainians and Russians, the Catholics and Protestants, the Indians and Pakistanis, etc.” – Isaac Saul, about experiencing the bitter divide between two ethnic groups: the Collas and Cambas in Bolivia, when he was on a trip/motorcycle adventure there recently.
It’s a strange irony, isn’t it? Even in the most dangerous neighborhoods in our country and around the world, the murders are typically done to neighbors, right inside of those same neighborhoods. Why is this? Some say that we disown our own worst qualities and project these qualities onto others. Perhaps the people closest to us are the easiest targets for our projections and mistrust. Also, power struggles are part of the human condition. We falsely believe that if we have power and control, then that equates to security. The need to dominate often stems from deep-seated fears of change, abandonment, and of perceived lack. But unfortunately, power struggles will not cease to exist, in situations where one person or group feels mostly powerless and dominated. So again, the irony is, until the need for peace is greater than the need to control, power struggles continue on into perpetuity. To end power struggles, empathy must be employed by both sides. Both sides need to be vulnerable enough to express their own fears and their emotions and their insecurities, and also to have a willingness to compromise, and to respect boundaries. Both sides have to trust that the other side is capable of this empathy, understanding, and the belief that the desired outcome is the same outcome for all: Peace. Power struggles stop when both sides drop the rope and become a team against “the problems” that continually hurt both sides. We see this phenomenon occur in science fiction movies, or even in real-life wars, when once fighting factions are able to unite against common enemies, such as invading aliens. Power struggles are part of our relationships and our humanity and our societies, but they are also able to be overcome with authenticity, empathy, tenacity, vision, and faith.
Do you have any power struggles going on in your life? With family? Friends? Co-workers? Why do you feel the need for power in these situations? What is similar in yourself, that you dislike in others? What is similar to yourself that you do like in others? Does your opposition have valid points? What do you fear about others? Why? What are your greatest fears? What empowers you?
“All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule? Who will lead? Who will define, refine, confine, design? Who will dominate? All struggles are essentially power struggles,and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.” – Octavia Butler
“At the root of every tantrum and power struggle are unmet needs.“ -Marshall B. Rosenberg
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1336. What is your favorite part of the day? (besides reading my blog, of course. 😉 )
How’s everyone doing out there? There is just so much going on right now. It’s a lot, and it’s been happening in steady succession, for a few years now. I just read this long thread on Twitter that started out with a shaming line of how disgusted the writer was with the idea that people are spending so much time on the Academy Awards fiasco, when there is so much pain happening in Ukraine and in other parts of the world. Some people gave the writer a big “Amen!” and some people reminded the writer that sometimes we need silly distractions from all the nightmares happening around us, which we cannot control. And do you know what? “Some people” were right.
Whatever you need to do right now that helps you to process your own living experience is okay. Just don’t assume that what works for you, is the right answer for someone else. If someone asks for our help and for our guidance, we can share what has helped us with our own experiences, and what has given us strength and hope during tough times. But we must also understand that we all have unique personalities and perspectives and coping mechanisms. This isn’t a “one size fits all” and when we try to make things a “one size fits all”, that’s usually when more trouble starts. This is when we get defensive with each other, and division ends up pulling us even further away from each other, with intolerance for others’ points of view and ways of going about living our own individual lives. In times of strife, we try to control everything outside of us, and that includes other people. It makes us feel better to feel like we are in control. But do you like the feeling of being controlled? No one does. A long time ago, a friend shared the Circle of Control, with our group of friends. It is a good one to go to often, as a reminder of the only things that we have total control over, and that is shown in the little green center. The rest of the chart we have a little influence over, and in the widest circle, we literally have no control. If we stick to focusing on what is in the green for ourselves, we will feel more “in control” and calm and peaceful, than when we try to control everything.
I think Groucho Marx said it best, “Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.” (kidding)
Have a great day, friends!! Stay in the green.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“I’ve asked many, many clients to name their personal strengths and it surprises me how many people don’t know them — or don’t consciously use them. They just leave them lying in a drawer, which is such a waste.
Our strengths — the things we’re good at (whether they’re innate or a skill we’ve developed) — are what make us unique in the world. And when we bring those strengths together, magic can happen.
So test yourself: Make sure you can name your top three strengths – along with recent evidence that you’ve used them.” – Karen Nimmo
Yesterday I wrote about an article that I had read by Karen Nimmo, a writer and a psychologist from New Zealand. The above excerpt was also in her article, and honestly, it made me do a lot of thinking and pondering. I’m going to spend a little more time with this challenge today, for myself, and I hope that you will do the same.
It is easy to point out other people’s strengths, but it really can be a lot harder to admit our own strengths. Sadly, I imagine that most of us could quickly make a list of our “faults” a lot easier than we could proudly list the things in which we are good at doing in this world. Sometimes, it seems that we have taken this lesson in humility, a tad too far.
Today, I am going to take Karen Nimmo’s challenge and I am going to spend some time listing my strengths. I am then going to narrow these strengths down to my top three. I may even make a list of some of my “faults”, in order to make myself feel comfortable, honest, and humble. I won’t be doing this on the blog, or any other public forum. This list will be between me, myself and I.
I think that it is quite important to know what we are good at, and how we can best contribute to our shared world. Imagine if we were in a dire place, such as in Ukraine right now. It is vital for the leaders of the country and of the military to understand and to play to their best of each of their strengths. Who is the best strategic planner? Who is the best fighter? Who is the best negotiator? Who is the best communicator? Who has the best ability to keep the morale of the people and the soldiers alive and inspired?
While I think that it can be useful to focus on our top three strengths, I believe that an honest inventory of all of our abilities and talents (even the ones which are unusual and easy to overlook) can give us a real overall picture of who we are, and why we should feel confident and purposeful and important to the overall scheme of things. Strengths come in all sorts of packages. For instance, my husband has this uncanny, unstudied ability to find things. If something is lost, 99 percent of the time, I know that my husband will find it. He has found jewelry at the bottom of large public swimming pools, long lost mobile phones in thick national forests, and my father’s glasses in the deep sand covered by the waves at the beach. The other day, I lost a small stud earring and try as I might, I couldn’t find it. I didn’t even mention it to my husband. As I was brushing my teeth, I noticed that my husband had placed the earring, which he had found, right by my sink. And I already knew that this would likely happen. I had comforted myself with that thought, earlier in the day.
From time to time, traits that are sometimes considered to be “faults” can also be our strongest assets. This is another reason why I think that a personal inventory of our strengths and our weaknesses can be extremely helpful in getting to know ourselves and our purposes better. There is a young man on my daughter’s tennis team who is on the spectrum for autism. His matter-of-fact personality is very much in line with Sheldon Cooper’s personality, from the TV show, “The Big Bang Theory.” I have found this young man’s candor to be off-putting at times (which says a lot, because I tend to be a blunt cookie myself). Sadly, I imagine that this trait of his, may have made him a victim of unfortunate bullying, from time to time. However, the other day when my daughter was playing an opponent, her opponent called my daughter’s serve out (and this player had done this a few times, making calls which seemed questionable to me). There are no referees at high school tennis matches in our area, so the players’ calls stand. I didn’t think that my daughter’s serve was out at all, but I kept mum. I didn’t want to be one of those hysterical, sideline stage moms (on that particular day, anyway, plus my daughter was handedly winning). My daughter’s Sheldon Cooper-ish teammate did not keep quiet though. Without anger, but with a clear and direct confidence, he loudly announced to my daughter’s opponent, “Just so you know, that ball wasn’t out at all. Be careful with your calls.” The opponent embarrassingly mumbled an apology, and she didn’t make any bad calls, after our team’s own Sheldon outed the player on what may have been her intentional cheating. After the game, I thanked my daughter’s teammate for standing up for my daughter, and I told him how impressed I was that he had the courage to do that act, and to do it without anger, and yet with no hesitation. He said matter-of-factly, but with a proud smile, “Well, the ball was very much in.”
Knowing your strengths and playing to them is vital to your family and to your job and to any entity that you are involved with, in order to make the most positive impact on our shared world. One of my dear friends works as a director at her church. She was telling me that they are starting a new program to help parents of special needs kids get a break, for a few hours once a week. There are so few of these programs around, that parents are willing to drive for over an hour, in order to drop their children at a safe, comforting space, so that the exhausted parents can get a few hours to themselves to regroup, and to run errands that otherwise might be too challenging to do with a special needs child in tow. My friend is a compassionate, smart, and lovely person. She is easily one of the most organized people whom I have ever met. I asked her if she was going to be one of the caretakers of the special needs children. “No, that’s not my strength,” she said to me. “But I will have the program up and running soon, with the right people in place, because it is such a needed ministry.” And there is no doubt in my mind that she will do this, and it will be amazing. God/Universe/Creation is using her strengths for Divine work.
Today, or sometime soon, I challenge you to take Karen Nimmo’s advice, and at the very least, list your three best strengths. Get reacquainted with yourself. Get reacquainted with your unique qualities which make you such a special and needed thread in our immense, beautiful, shared quilt of Life. By knowing yourself, you best understand your own purposes, and your life becomes more meaningful to you and to others, more than it ever has before.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’ve been trying to understand my own obsession with following this awful situation in Ukraine. I’ve come to the conclusion that it reminds me of the various difficult times in my own life when I have felt pretty helpless watching loved ones struggle in their own lives, whether it be with disease or with another physical affliction, or with addiction, or with mental struggles, or with a toxic relationship, or any combination of the above, and I have been unable to “fix it” for them. I have been unable to be the dashing lifeboat, that I so desperately want to be. It is a devastating feeling. And most of us have felt this stabbing pain of powerlessness at one time or another, once we have reached this middle stage in our lives.
The heartache is particularly fervent and desperate and sad, when like Ukraine, the loved one, whom we are trying to help, is doing everything that they can to help themselves, too. The person with cancer, is taking their treatment and their health as seriously as possible, the depressed person is earnestly trying with therapy and medication and exercise and prayer, the addicted person is working the 12 steps and keeping in regular contact with a sponsor, and the person in a toxic relationship is taking serious steps towards safety and independence and self-worth. Like most of the nations in the world are feeling and expressing about Ukraine, we naturally want to help those who are earnestly trying to work themselves out of tragic circumstances. We are so inspired by their bravery, and their resilience and their belief in themselves, in the most trying of circumstances, and this inspires us to do everything that we also can do, in order to support their cause. However, in the end, we can’t be their saviors. Sometimes they can’t even be their own saviors. For those of us who have religious and spiritual beliefs, we know that something greater than us and this world, will save those whom we love and who are struggling, but it may not be in the form that we think it should be in, or in the pretty little Hollywood ending that we would like it to be. Our limited minds can’t see the highest views of eternity. That’s why we call our highest virtues besides love, “faith and hope”. We have to believe in something greater than what we are witnessing with our extremely limited human experience. If we don’t believe that all of the many, many good things in life are worth fighting for, and are worth living for, then we will all just despairingly give up, and we will quickly perish. And that’s just not in our collective DNA. Our Higher Creative Mind hasn’t programmed us to give up. So sometimes, we stop and we take a moment to feel the feelings, even the darkest feelings of helplessness and anger and anguish, but then we rise and we put on our boots and we soldier on . . . .
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Like so many of us, I have been completely in awe, and incredibly inspired by the courageous Ukrainian people and their magnificent real-life hero of a leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. I read somewhere that never has the majority of the world felt so united since 9/11. Doesn’t this feeling of unity feel so good? It’s been too long. Why must it take evil and violence for the world to wake up to how good solidarity feels to the majority of us all? A Tweet from Julius Kim (@Julius_Kim) says it best, I think:
“The war in #Ukraine touches the world so deeply because the little guy everywhereis so sick of being pushed around by bullies. Ukraine is us, and we are Ukraine.”
I’m sorry, friends. In light of what is going on in the world these last couple of days, I am not feeling my usual lighthearted, “let’s just focus on the material stuff” Friday mojo. Like so many of us, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on what is happening in the Ukraine. I’ve been noticing my feelings, and I have been spending a lot of time praying for everyone around the world who is suffering from pain, fear and disillusionment.
I’ve taken this current horrific situation going on, and I reflected on its “microcosm” that by now, at our ages, everyone has experienced at least once, in each of our lives:
“No one is coming to save you. This life of yours is 100 percent your responsibility.”
It’s a cold, hard truth and the first time that this truth smacks you in the face, it is so scary and dark and lonely and painful to fully realize this truth. It’s brutal. But then, the redemption occurs. This is the very moment that you learn to trust yourself. This is the very moment that you learn that you can rely on yourself. This is the very moment that you come to know your strength and your determination and your resilience like you never have before. You never feel more fully alive than when you fully realize your own worth. You realize that you are worth fighting for, that you deserve more than what you have been allowing, that you have people (and higher spiritual forces) who love you, and who support you, and who want to help you in your cause. This is the moment that you realize that you love yourself, and that you value yourself and there is no one who knows you, and what you need better than you. There is no one who will take better care of you, than you. This is the moment when you realize your own worth. This is when you experience your own personal freedom and victory. This is the day that you realize your greatest champion on Earth must be you. When this occurs, all the forces in the natural and in the supernatural are by your side, and the wind is at your back. You are filled with an energetic, wise knowing and confidence that you deserve to be the fullest creative expression of your truest self and you will let nothing will stop you from realizing your highest form of being.
Today is an excellent day to focus on your favorite being in the whole wide world, to focus on the person who was with you from the very beginning of your birth here, and who will be with you to the very last breaths of your stay here on Earth. Today is an excellent day to focus on your favorite being in the world who has been with you through every single up and down that you have ever experienced in every single day of your life. Today is an excellent day to be thankful to your favorite being for all of the experiences shared, the warm, supportive relationships created, and for the creative journey currently being experienced in the here and now. Today your favorite anything, should be YOU! Everything that you need, is inside of you. Your navigation system is forever connected to the Highest Loving Intelligence that exists. Trust this fact. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Your superhero is You. And you are more incredible and worthy and capable than you ever give yourself credit for being!
And also for today, my daily mantra on the blog is directed specifically to the warmongers in this world:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
My prayers are for the Ukrainian people, particularly the children. May their fears be snuffed out by the peace of a strong faith and the perseverance of endless hope. My prayers are for our world leaders. May these leaders only hear and react to the quiet wisdom and guidance that is imparted to all of us by the Divine, for the highest good of us all. May peace reign.
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” – Malcom X
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” – Black Elk
“I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.” – Helen Keller
“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations… entangling alliances withnone.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures, it is our giftto each other.” – Elie Wiesel
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
